AI sovereignty is important because the choices the UK makes now will shape long-term competitiveness, resilience, public trust and strategic autonomy. The Council believes that government needs a clear view of where national capability matters, where dependence is acceptable, and where the UK has a credible opportunity to lead.
For CST, an important first step towards achieving AI sovereignty is defining what it means for the UK in practice.
What is ‘AI Sovereignty’?
While some use ‘AI sovereignty’ to refer to control over AI technologies and models, CST has proposed a broader definition:
AI sovereignty means having sufficient agency across the AI value chain to deliver the UK’s chosen outcomes, capture economic and public value for the UK, and maintain resilience under duress.
With this in mind, achieving AI sovereignty depends on the UK developing the right skills, organisations, data, and technical strengths to deliver the outcomes that the UK wants. In practice, this means deciding where the UK should build its own capability, where it should collaborate with trusted partners, and where resilient access to technology developed elsewhere is sufficient.
The aim of sovereignty is therefore not complete self-sufficiency, but retaining enough agency to shape how AI is developed and used by our services, businesses, and people.1
Achieving AI sovereignty
To help realise this opportunity, CST proposed four recommendations to government:
- Develop a UK AI Sovereignty Plan based on a clear overview of the AI ecosystem.
- Set up clear governance and coordination for AI sovereignty choices.
- Invest now in the foundations of long-term domestic AI capability, including skills, data and public trust.
- Maintain trusted access to leading AI models while building selected UK capability.
The full CST advice can be found: AI sovereignty: preserving UK agency in an AI-enabled world - GOV.UK.
CST will continue to engage with ministers and policy makers to support the implementation of recommendations.
- Sir John Lazar CBE FREng (14 September 2026). Design choices for future AI – finding a way forward. Available at: https://raeng.org.uk/blogs/design-choices-for-future-ai-finding-a-way-forward/ ↩︎
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